


what i like about you baby (is how you annoy me daily)

by artificialashley



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Boarding School, Alternate Universe - High School, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Roommates, Slow Burn, slow release due to author stress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-14 11:47:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28545060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artificialashley/pseuds/artificialashley
Summary: “You didn’t have to, you know? Sacrifice yourself for me. I could have handled it.”“I’d hardly call it a sacrifice. You’ve given me some street cred, actually.”George heard the other boy snicker in his bed, muffled slightly by what George assumed to be his duvet pulled right up to his face.“I don’t know,” Clay continued. “It seemed rather sacrificial to me.”He wished that the stupid blue lamp was a fan instead, suddenly suffocated by his own duvet, pulling it away from his chest.“When I sacrifice myself for you, you’ll know about it.”~“What is it?” Zak’s eyes grew wide and Darryl’s automatic reaction was to shut his own. He’d read somewhere once that when guinea pigs shut their eyes they thought they were invisible to everyone else and soon after closing his eyes became a reflex Darryl’s mind jumped to whenever he, himself, wished he was invisible.“I wrote Alex first on my form.”“You wrote them the wrong way round by mistake?”“No,” Darryl replied, too scared to tell his best friend that after so many discussions about what it would finally be like to room together, he hadn’t even written his name on the form at all.
Relationships: Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), Zak Ahmed/Darryl Noveschosch
Comments: 14
Kudos: 46





	1. George

George’s first day back at school had been quite good so far.

Granted, he’d only been there for an hour but it was an optimistic hour all the same. It was his final year at the Academy and after a summer of being apart from his friends, George was more than ready for it. Ready for one last year of pissing about and making fun of said friends mercilessly until they all parted their ways to go to University (not that he was ever spared his turn at being the butt of the joke). Ready for the extra privileges they’d all have now that they were in their final year; the double rooms, the extra hours of freedom they’d be given at the weekend and the secret parties he just knew Zak would be able to pass off as rugby team bonding. Other than the whole  _ ridiculously hard exams that could change the entire span of his life  _ thing that he’d been reminded of the second he entered the building, George was ready every single second of that year, his hands starting to sweat at the thought.

“Gross.” Nick caught George wiping said hands against his trousers in a manner far too aggressive than necessary, sliding next to him as though they’d spent no time apart.

George had missed that judgemental voice more than he’d liked to admit.

“What a way to greet your dear friend you’ve spent all summer without, god,” George replied, taking the chance to grab at Nick’s chin and examine the ridiculous amount of facial hair he’d managed to gain over the past six weeks. Well, ridiculous compared to the clean slate of George’s own face. He guessed he’d have to spend another year being the baby of the group, a title he found rather ridiculous considering the facts that a) he was actually the oldest and b) Alex still ordered Happy Meals whenever they got McDonald's after matches. 

Nick slapped his hand away almost instantly.

“Would it make you feel better if I told you I tripped Karl over in the corridor in front of all the upper sixth about ten minutes ago?”

“A little.” George laughed at the image, making a mental note to text Karl once they’d collected the keys to their rooms. In fact, he’d thought of three different jokes about having a nice trip over the summer by the time they’d made it to the front of the queue. “I wish I’d seen it though.”

“I’m sure we can trip him up again later.” Nick patted George on the back before going up to collect his key.

George crossed his fingers behind his back as he told the lady his name - six years on the top floor of the dorms had really put a stint in his motivation to go pretty much anywhere unless it involved food. And he couldn’t afford to get abuse from the boys about being too lazy for rugby practice this year, ready to prove that he wasn’t just there because all of his friends were on the team and they sometimes got to miss lessons. He wasn’t even asking to be on the bottom, he’d be happy with the second or third floor if they gave him it. 

Anything but the fifth.

“E-02.” The lady passed the keys and George felt all the optimism he’d had for the day fly out of the big glass window to his left. Or perhaps it went out of one of the smaller ones on the fifth floor that he’d have to call home this year. 

Just his luck.

“D-14.” Nick read from the chain attached to his keys. “Ten pound says you get yourself locked out and have to call me before the end of the week?”

George quickly snatched the keys from his friend’s hand to compare with his own, the different room numbers laughing right in his face like some sort of sick karma for being too lazy to climb stairs.

Perhaps he should have crossed the fingers on his right hand too; that optimism from before now completely out of the school grounds, hurtling down the nearest motorway at least twenty mph over the speed limit, leaving George to sulk like a toddler because he was apart from his friend.

Maybe he had earned that ‘baby of the group’ title after all.

“There’s no point in betting that when we’re not even together!” He thrust both sets of keys into Nick’s hand for him to see. “Did you not write my name first on the pairing form?”

“I did. You first, Zak second. I sent you a screenshot!”

“Well, something must have messed up because I put you first and Karl second.”

Suddenly George took back every single thought he’d conjured about how good it would be to finally stay in double rooms.

An entire year of just him and Karl? He’d probably end up on the roof of a psych ward before he made it to Christmas break nevermind the top floor of the dorms. 

“Look in the group chat. Zak says he’s in D-14 too and Karl’s sharing with Alastair,” Nick replied.

“Who the fuck am I with then?” He grabbed Nick’s phone from his hand, far too desperate to get his own out of his pocket, and scrolled rapidly for any sighting of an “E-02” in the chat to no avail.

“Guess you’re gonna have to go and find out, dude.”

For a moment, George thought they were trolling him, that once he said goodbye to Nick and climbed that extra set of stairs to his new room he’d find Karl or one of the other boys hiding behind the door ready to scare him. It was an old trick, one that George had unfortunately fallen victim to many times at the Academy (at least six videos of his high pitched scream and the small scar on Alex’s eyebrow ample evidence to show this), so he was already thinking of ways he could enact his revenge by the time he got there. 

‘Guess you’re gonna have to go find out, dude?’ If George had learned anything from the drama lessons they’d been forced to take in their early years it was that his friends were all capable of winning Razzie’s for their acting capabilities. Nick included.

So adamant he was being tricked, George made sure to turn the key extra slowly until it clicked open, his hand steady on the handle. Suddenly, he swung it open and leapt onto the carpet, a noise resembling a battle cry hurtling out of his throat that every room on the floor (and maybe even the one below) could probably hear, to find-

The back of the door?

“Erm, hello?” The voice took George off-guard, defying the whole reason he’d just barged into the room like a lunatic in the first place as he jumped out of his skin.

It was a loud and clear voice, the type that read kids books out loud on those CDs you used to get for free in the newspaper. George had always loved them as a kid, memories of having the entire Famous Five and Secret Seven collections stored under his bed springing to mind (he also remembered binning them one day when a boy on his street said they were for sissies, but he pushed that picture away quickly, knowing it wouldn’t help lighten the already bright shade of red he wore on his cheeks after the scream).

George’s eyes scanned rapidly once he turned, first to the boy in the (probably) green hoodie who was already comfortable in the left side bed, dirty blonde curls on top of his head and a basketball in his hands being thrown in the air and caught again with perfect precision. Then they went to the walls, dozens of sunny photos and a framed NFL jersey already covering the dull grey paint. He noticed the laptop on the boy's bedside too, a decent one by the looks of it, much better than George’s (though it was hard to tell at first glance with a multitude of stickers on the back almost covering the brand). And finally, his eyes returned back to the boy, still lying down and smiling to himself as George stood before the doorway like a bottle of milk someone had left out in the rain.

A bottle of milk who wished he could throw himself down the nearest drainpipe and live in the sewers for the rest of his life to avoid the embarrassment of just having tried to scare the back of a door in front of his new roommate.

“Sorry, I thought that my friend was behind there.” George lugged his bag onto the spare bed. He preferred sleeping against the wall but it was probably a bit too late to tell that to Mr Jock who looked like he’d already been living there for six months the way his stuff was splattered around.

“Are all your friends ghosts, Caspar?” The boy laughed to himself, finally taking a minute to stop his solo basketball game.

“That doesn’t make sense. If my friends were ghosts then they would be Casper, not me.” George started shoving his clothes into the closet as they spoke, leaving his bag practically empty minus his laptop, headphones and a blue lamp his auntie had given him for his birthday that year.

“Who said that was the joke? I was actually referring to how pale you are. I guess they were right about how cold it is here.”

“Hilarious.”

It didn’t take long for George to finish the rest of his packing, eager to meet the other boys before lunch and escape the burning gaze of his new roommate. It took even less time, however, for said roommate to fire another quip his way.

“Is that seriously all the stuff you’ve brought with you? It looks like a prison cell.” The boy gestured his arms to George’s side of the room. “No pictures or anything?”

“I don’t need pictures of my friends, I can walk downstairs and see them.” George didn’t know why he was getting so defensive but couldn’t help it, suddenly aware of the complete lack of personal items in his room. 

At least he had the lamp?

“The ghosts?” The boy was quick to respond and George had to stare at the ceiling for a second in case he accidentally laughed. There was no such thing as being too proud in situations like this.

“No, real-life friends. I’m on the rugby team.” George reiterated, even trying to count them in his head for a second like someone aged eight rather than eighteen. 

He got to six before the boy threw his brain off.

“Rugby?” The boy looked George up and down and premiered the sequel to his smile from before, the one that forced George to stare no matter how hard he tried to pull his eyes somewhere else. “Is that just like a gay version of NFL?”

George didn’t respond.

“I was the quarterback at school before I stopped going, I reckon I’d be quite good at it if that’s the case.” He carried on, George saved from a reply by the loud banging on his door and two even louder voices calling his name like they were axe-wielding lunatics on their way to kill him.

Maybe it would have been better if the new kid thought he was friends with ghosts instead.

George took a deep breath before letting them in.

“I thought we were gonna have to break your door down again, god.” Zak immediately made himself comfortable on George’s desk chair, spinning around on it as if he didn’t have one exactly the same in his room downstairs. Or rather his and Nick’s room, he should be calling it, ready to cuss the other boy out for stealing his roommate before remembering the American at the other side of the room. The American at the other side of the room who had now stood up and revealed himself to be an actual, fucking giant. 

Of course, he was taller than George. Of course, he was.

George went to question Zak’s use of the word “have”, planning to remind him that breaking his door down wasn’t necessary the first time it happened (and would more importantly, never ever be necessary); only his words trailed away slightly at the end, watching as his roommate shifted awkwardly on his feet, fingers tickling the air by his sides.

“Are you not gonna introduce us, George?” Nick tried his best to cut the tension in the air but only made it partway, a big fat knife stuck in the middle of the room that George was too scared to jump over.

“Er, yeah, this is my roommate.” He pointed, realising that he sounded not only like an imbecile, but also like the biggest douche in the world for not having already asked what his name was.

Although, it wasn’t like he’d asked George either.

He figured it was something super stereotypical that belonged on the wall of a frat house. Like Jared or Kyle or Blake or-

“Clay.” The boy came over and shook both Nick and Zak’s hands, repeating their names to himself a few times after being told.

George wondered why he didn’t get a handshake.

“George was just telling me that you guys play rugby, thinking I could try out for your team and put him to shame.”

“Like that’d be hard, he spends the entire time screaming like an idiot and throwing hissy fits.” Nick laughed.

“I do not.” George shot a look of death towards his friend, knowing fine well he had just proven Nick’s point through his dramatic reaction. “And Zak is way worse than me for screaming.”

“I’ll take that.” Zak stood up from the chair, clearly too impatient to argue as he walked to the door. “Now are we going to go down to eat or what?”

“I get it, you wanna go down to see  _ everyone _ .” George raised an eyebrow to his friend, unsure of whether Zak was too desperate to get to the dining hall to pick up on the joke behind his words or that he had simply gotten really good at not reacting. It was probably the latter - Zak was cleverer than people made him out to be. “You’re gonna have to wait until this guy puts his blazer on though.”

“I can’t wear my hoodie to go and eat?” Clay looked down at what he was wearing then back at the boys, a stroke of innocence flashing in his eyes that George would have missed had he not already been watching them.

“You’ve got so much to learn.” Nick grabbed the blazer from the chair and threw it across the room to the other boy. “Now hurry up or we’ll miss out on the sweet potato fries.”

He was right about the sweet potato fries, only a handful left by the time they got to the front of the queue (George thought about leaving some for Zak as he scooped the last ones onto his plate but decided against it. He figured his friend could always convince  _ someone _ to give him some if he really wanted). Nick was right about Clay too, George seeing a tiny crack in his nonchalant demeanour as they ate their lunch, his brain clearly working at two times the pace of everyone else's to keep up with their conversations. He was good at hiding it though, receiving a high five from Wilbur and a laugh from Dave within the first half of their lunch hour.

George knew fine well that he'd never even managed to crack a smile from Dave himself.

“What subjects do you take?” Darryl asked the other boy between bites.

George noticed the two desserts sitting on his tray and made up his mind about the reason Zak was so eager to go to the dining hall before, shooting a smile towards his friend that was quickly returned with a “what the fuck are you looking at” glare he figured would probably get his door broken down for real later on.

“English lit, history and computer science.” Clay replied.

George had thought he was safe at first, writing off the chances the second he heard English lit only to have his whole body start to burn the second Clay had mentioned the final subject.

He spat the orange juice he’d been drinking back into the cup, pretending not to see the quick glance the boy opposite him had taken before Darryl spoke again.

“You might be in the same computer science as me and George. Do you have it last thing today?”

“I’m not sure. I’ll have to double-check my timetable after we’re done.”

Despite the two in three chance that Clay would be in a different class, something about George’s luck that day already told him that his too tall roommate with the quick comebacks and voice that melted butter would be in his class that evening, ready to be ten times better at coding (and also life in general) than him and make him feel shitty about the lack of effort he’d put into the subject over the past year. 

So he was surprised when the time finally came to start his last lesson of the day and there was no sign of Clay, hesitating for a second as he took the same seat he’d claimed last year - far enough from the front that he could play games with Floris when the teacher wasn’t looking but close enough that he could see the board without having to squint too much.

“If I take a nap will you tell me if he says anything important?” George whispered to the boys beside him, his right eye already starting to close as their teacher mapped out the extremely dull and detailed plan of what they’d be examined on at the end of the course.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t already heard it a thousand times the year before.

“Course I will.” Floris gave a slightly sinister grin.

“Like I’d trust you,” George replied. “Darryl? Please.”

“George it’s the first day back and we’ve had all this morning off. Are you seriously telling me you can’t focus for one more hour?”

“I’m so sleep-deprived.” George pouted his lip a tad, knowing exactly what cards he had to play to get Darryl’s help. “I had to leave so early this morning to get here.”

“If you put it like that.” Darryl rolled his eyes, far too kind for his own good but just the right amount for George’s.

He wasn’t sure how long he’d been gone by the time he woke up, the slamming of the wooden classroom door pulling him away from his dream and jolting him back in his seat. It took him a second to realise where he was, both Floris and Darryl chuckling by his side.

Only he was quickly distracted from their whispered jabs about him when he looked up and found what had woken him. Or rather, who had woken him.

“Sorry, I’m late.” He nodded to the teacher, making his way to an empty seat across the room. “I got lost.”

George caught his eye as he spoke, Clay’s mouth opening a tad when he saw George, his shoulders hunching up to his neck to make the sleeves of his blazer a tad too short, tanned skin around his wrists exposed that only reminded George of the comment the other boy had made earlier.

Maybe he was a tad pale in comparison.

“Do they not ask for directions where you come from?” The teacher raised a brow at Clay, who returned with a smart remark about everything in Florida having GPS. 

“You didn’t tell your roommate where the classroom was?” Darryl elbowed George, reminding him that there were other people in the room beside said roommate and the teacher who was seconds off from giving him the first strike of the year.

“It’s not that difficult,” George replied.

Because despite the unfaltering tone in his voice as he’d said it, George had a strong feeling that Clay was lying about getting lost. And the way he kept glancing over towards George just about confirmed it.

Clay stayed quiet after that, his back hunched over the desk as he scribbled in his notepad (George figured he wasn’t writing down anything from the board but couldn’t have been sure, a look of concentration on the other boy’s face just a tad too guarded to decipher). Or at least he stayed quiet for twenty minutes, George practically seeing the lightbulb flash above his head the second someone knocked on the door asking to borrow their teacher for a few minutes.

“What are you doing?” Darryl shouted over.

Clay was at the teacher’s desk within seconds, clicking the mouse rapidly, every set of eyes in the class burning on him. 

George’s included.

“What are we thinking?” He addressed the class as though he was the teacher himself. “Set the wallpaper as a screenshot? Switch the keyboard layout?”

“Change the way the mouse scrolls!” Floris shouted, earning a jab in the ribs from Darryl presumably harder from the one George had just received based on the small yelp that escaped his throat.

“Perfect.” Clay tapped away, grabbing a Post-It from the desk and placing it under the mouse before returning to his seat, scribbling away in the notepad again like there was nothing amiss by the time their teacher had returned.

George couldn’t tell if he found him funny or just annoying, the rest of the class clearly teetering onto the funny side as they watched steam blow from the old man’s ears upon trying and failing to move his mouse.

“Very amusing.” He ripped off the Post-It and attempted to throw it in the bin, the class snickering even more when it landed at least a meter away. 

It didn’t take long for him to figure out the scrolling had been changed too, the PowerPoint slides flying in the wrong direction as he attempted to continue the lesson.

Even Darryl was snickering at that point, everyone in the class cracking a smile as Clay’s head remained down in his notebook, the smile in his eyes almost obscured by a strand of hair that flopped in front of them. Almost.

“I think you’re going the wrong way.” Clay didn’t even bother to look up as he spoke. “Guess it’s both of us who need those directions after all.”

In his time at the Academy, George had pretty much seen it all: posh boys spraying each other’s trousers with deodorant in the changing rooms, people hiding cheap cider in their gym kits and a whole lot of pranks on teachers. It was true that their computer science teacher was never spared from the torment that came from teaching at an all-boys school in the countryside where there was literally nothing else to do than piss about (especially given the fact Floris and his continuing need to make everything as difficult as possible was present in his class). But messing with the teacher on the first day back was certainly a new one for George, and clearly for their teacher too, the y-shaped vein bursting through his forehead enough to tell everyone that before he'd even started to shout.

“So this was your doing then?” He turned to Clay, practically firing stones at him from the vein as if it were a slingshot.

George looked back to the boy, his notepad now closed and pushed to one side. He couldn’t quite figure out the look on his eyes. He wasn’t scared. And he wasn’t sorry. But he wasn’t happy either, no cocky smile at his success like the one George had expected him to wear. There was something different behind him that George hadn’t seen before. Something that, despite the levels of disdain he’d felt toward his roommate since meeting him that morning, compelled him to do the most out of character thing he’d probably ever done in his life.

“It was me.” He jumped in before Clay could open his mouth; before he, himself had even realised what he was doing.

“Davidson.” The teacher snapped his head round.

Maybe this was simply karma for all the times George had pushed the blame onto other people. Maybe it had nothing to do with Clay and his wide-eyed gaze and the fact George wanted to know what colour his eyes really were so bad but would rather shoot himself in the foot than ask. Maybe it was because of that time when he was twelve and he convinced his little sister she had to write her name on all of her furniture or someone else would steal it. Or maybe for the time in year seven when he’d snapped Karl’s favourite pencil and let him think it was Nick (an event which still got mentioned every time the pair had one of their married couple equivalent rows).

Maybe it was a combination of all of them.

Or something different completely.

“Detention. Two hours. I’ll leave a message with the kitchen staff to leave you a plate of dinner in the back.”

Maybe it was just because he was a total and utter idiot.

“Tell the boys I love them.” He reached for Darryl like a prisoner on death row once the bell rang at the end of the lesson, dramatically waving goodbye as he watched his friends leave.

He watched Clay leave too, taking wide steps across the room towards the door. George thought he might have tapped Darryl on the shoulder to ask him if he could hang out with them again but instead he paused for a moment as the rest of their classmates filtered out, resting his arm against the door frame.

George wondered how an ancient piece of building that was probably infested with woodworm could hold up all of the heavy thoughts behind those eyes. He thought for a second that if it was him instead he might have even got to find out what on earth some of them were.

Clay opened his mouth to speak but closed it just as fast, raising his brows at George before taking another one of his giant strides away into the sea of blazers and blank faces.

George would be lying if he said he didn’t think about him in those two hours. First about whether or not he would be grateful for George taking the blame. About why he had sent himself on a kamikaze on his first day at a new school, to begin with. Then about whether his dinner would be warm and whether he’d be in the room when George had to eat his all slimy and cold on his desk. He even thought about him when the teacher softened up and said he could work on some of his coursework for the last half an hour; when he got stuck on a piece of code and the first thought that popped into his mind was ‘I bet my bloody roommate would know what to do’. And finally, he thought about him in the ten minutes he dozed off - waking up to the teacher’s bark and nothing but a vague blur of basketballs and freckles. 

Basketballs, or a basketball rather, that would haunt him the rest of the night, flying past George’s face at the speed of sound the instant he opened his door, one second away from sending his porchetta and potatoes straight onto his shoes.

Just what he needed after two hours of detention, a trip to the kitchen and a five-story stair climb with a full plate of food.

“Jesus Christ.” He scanned the room to find a complex point scoring system detailed on their whiteboard and his two best friends stood firmly on a bed each with Clay on the floor in front of him, dashing forward to scoop up the basketball that had just nearly cost George his dinner (and perhaps his life too).

“Gogy!” Karl cried, throwing a hand in the air to greet him only to smack it directly onto the ceiling.

At least he wasn’t the dumb friend of the group.

“We came to see if you were out of detention but you weren’t yet. Now we’re playing piggy in the middle,” Nick piped up, gesturing to the scoreboard which George didn’t even need to look at to know who was winning.

“Sounds legit.” George placed his dinner on the desk, pulling out the plastic cutlery from his bag ready to watch the festivities.

“Don’t worry.” Clay leaned forward as he spoke and made George flinch despite the fact they were still a meter apart. “I made sure these idiots took their shoes off before jumping on your clean sheets.”

Something stung inside of George as his roommate spoke. His mother would have probably told him it was a case of jealousy but as he looked across at Karl and Nick that didn’t quite hit the nail on its head.

“You ready to get your ass whooped, George?” Nick shouted over, always the best at talking trash but the absolute worse when it came to taking it.

“Five pound says I thrash you all once I’ve eaten.”

And so George played until his arms ached, he could barely breathe and he’d lost a grand total of forty pounds (having made the foolish decision to double or nothing his bet an entire three times). 

When he first arrived at the Academy all those years ago, he’d always pictured his future self as someone cool. He’d thought that eighteen-year-old George would be the star forward on the rugby team with girls from their sister school falling all over him. His fantasies had never quite extended to piggy in the middle with three other lads and a two-litre bottle of Dr Pepper so full of sugar that he might as well have been drunk. But as the sky changed from light to dark that night and he collapsed in his bed, shouting goodnight to Nick and Karl with added threats of future annihilation, he thought that the start of his year wasn’t so bad after all.

It wasn’t long until Clay had done the same, changing from his uniform into a pair of shorts and a t-shirt that made George feel a bit childish in his full set of pyjamas (yet another gift from his auntie). George stole a glance at his roommate before he flicked the light switch off, catching the toning on his arms and the way the freckles from his face were cast across them too. 

Maybe this would be the year they’d finally win a match.

“Thanks for today.” His roommate's voice found its way to George through the dark.

George thought about flicking the switch for the blue lamp on his bedside but decided against it. Something told him it’d be better to talk like that.

“It’s fine. Don’t overthink it.” George replied, unsure of whether he was talking to himself or Clay.

If he didn’t turn the lamp on then he wouldn’t have to know.

“You didn’t have to, you know? Sacrifice yourself for me. I could have handled it.”

“I’d hardly call it a sacrifice. You’ve given me some street cred, actually.”

George heard the other boy snicker in his bed, muffled slightly by what George assumed to be his duvet pulled right up to his face.

“I don’t know,” Clay continued. “It seemed rather sacrificial to me.”

He wished that the stupid blue lamp was a fan instead, suddenly suffocated by his own duvet, pulling it away from his chest.

“When I sacrifice myself for you, you’ll know about it.”

George tried to let the silence take him but failed, tossing and turning for hours that night, his pillow being flipped to the cold side far too many times than usual. He blamed the two naps he’d had. And again, he was thankful for the darkness, for his ability to push away the boy on the other side of the room to pretend he was alone.

Until all of that was broken by the light on Clay’s phone: his footsteps across the room towards the door, the whisper of his voice holding nothing but affection and the echo of a girl’s back with something just the same. George held his breath once the door closed and it didn’t feel like he’d released it until it opened again sometime later, those same footsteps making their way back across the floor.

At breakfast the next day when Wilbur made fun of the bags under his eyes, George told him all about his two naps in the computer science classroom. 

  
  
  



	2. Darryl

“You know Nick was saying earlier that him and George put each other first on the form too but George is stuck with the new kid. We should go to the head and ask if they can swap us around so Alex is with him instead. If he doesn’t get here until next week then he doesn’t even have to find out, then we can be together.”

Darryl’s heart started beating about two times the pace it should have at his friend’s words, his eyes glued to the page as he listened, reading the same sentence about photosynthesis that had failed to pass into his memory the previous three times he’d tried.

“I feel like they’d get on,” Zak continued. “I think he’s gonna join the team so it’s not like him and Alex won’t have anything in common, more than you and him I bet.”

It was now at least ninety per cent likely that Darryl would fail the first test of the year, pretty sure that he couldn’t have explained what on earth the textbook was on about even if someone held a gun to his head. This was out of character for him.

But then again, so was lying.

“You’d be surprised, Alex can be quite deep when he wants to be.” He tried his best to sound present but faltered, the words coming out of the shell of his body rather than the person inside who was being eaten up by guilt every second.

“He’s as deep as a pond. Are you alright?”

“I don’t think that’s helping your point, ponds can be quite deep Zak. The one out in the botanic gardens is like eleven feet, that’s two of you.”

Darryl waited for him to shout back that he was much taller than five foot five but he didn't, knowing for a fact he would have picked up on the comment and done the maths to work it out. Because, despite the fact he sometimes acted like he wasn’t, Darryl knew better than anyone that Zak was rather clever.

Maybe even the cleverest person he knew.

The book closed in front of him just as Darryl began to question whether photosynthesis was even a real word after all. 

He looked Zak in the eyes and felt a lump the size of his own fist form in his throat.

“What’s wrong? Is it the rugby boys? We don’t have to eat lunch with them if you don’t want to, you know? They might be my friends but you’re my best friend and I’m the only one who's allowed to make fun of you around here.”

The words poked even more at Darryl’s insides, knocking over the thin matchsticks that made his limbs and threatening to set them all alight if Zak said anything more. Even after all the years they’d spent by each other’s side it still seemed a tad surreal whenever he heard Zak call him his best friend. What had started as the stereotypical popular kid pretending to join the physics club to prank it’s far too serious leader had turned into the only life that Darryl really knew. He’d had friends before Zak but none quite like him; he had friends who left him when he needed it most, friends who only used him for personal gain and friends who, quite simply, didn’t care for him as much as he did for them. But Zak wasn’t like that, he pushed Darryl’s limits when they needed to be pushed and protected him if they ever went too far. And most of the time, Zak needed Darryl just as much as Darryl needed him. Which made lying to him hurt even more. 

“It’s not that. I kinda need to tell you something.”

One time in year nine, Darryl had slipped over trying to climb up the hill towards the music room and landed face first in the mud. His entire body, his backpack and the snare drum he was carrying were all soaked and he continued to slip until a sixth-former had come and physically carried him to the top of the hill in front of the entire school. People still joked about it now (Zak included) and Darryl had always chalked it up as one of the worst moments of his life.

This conversation kind of felt like that.

“What is it?” Zak’s eyes grew wide and Darryl’s automatic reaction was to shut his own. He’d read somewhere once that when guinea pigs shut their eyes they thought they were invisible to everyone else and soon after closing his eyes became a reflex Darryl’s mind jumped to whenever he, himself, wished he was invisible.

“I wrote Alex first on my form.”

“You wrote them the wrong way round by mistake?”

“No,” Darryl replied, too scared to tell his best friend that after so many discussions about what it would finally be like to room together, he hadn’t even written his name on the form at all.

“Is this a troll?”

“If I could go back, I’d do it differently I promise.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

The swear word stung Darryl but he knew he deserved it, his voice was too hoarse when he tried to speak again so he just didn’t bother.

“You’d rather room with Alex than me? Do you like him better or something ‘cause you could have just told me? I just don’t get it. All he ever does is make jokes and swear at you.”

“You’ve just sworn at me,” Darryl reminded him. “And it’s not like you’re alone, you’re with Nick. You were just saying yesterday how he seemed like a good roommate.”

“I didn’t want to be with Nick. I wanted to be with you.”

That hit harder than the mud in his face. So much harder.

“I wanted to be with you too. I still do. Just calm down please, you’re making me stressed.”

“I’m calm.” Zak lowered his voice and spoke slower but it didn’t make Darryl feel any better, opening his eyes to someone who was simply hurt and wishing right away he was facing someone angry instead. “I’m just confused. I’ve spent all week complaining about how we weren’t put together.”

“I just got stressed okay. I was looking at all the different Unis and it just started to hit me that we wouldn’t be together after we leave here and I didn’t want to rely on you too much. I just kept thinking that I needed to separate myself from you or else I wouldn’t know what to do with myself after,” Darryl replied truthfully, thinking of all the passing comments from his family, teachers, their peers that mounted in his head the week he’d filled the form in.

There was the other thing too. But he didn’t really understand that himself and didn’t know where to start explaining it to Zak.

He really hoped it was enough.

“Surely that’s all the more reason to room together? If we’ve only got this year left and then we won’t get to see each other every day. I thought you’d want to make the most of it.”

“I told you I just got scared.”

He was scared at that moment too but tried his best not to show it, the books around them teetering so closely off the shelves, ready to fall and crush him at the flick of a wrist.

“I get it,” Zak replied. “Or I’m trying to get it. I just don’t get why you wouldn’t talk to me about it. I would have understood-tried to understand.”

“I know. I’m really sorry.”

“Look, I’m gonna go. That Clay kid is trying out for the team soon and they wanted us to come and practice. I should probably be there, seen as I’m in charge of running the socials and stuff this year.”

Darryl wanted to tell him not to go, to stay there so he could try his best to explain, to tell Zak about every single anxiety he had and how, although his best friend did a good job at scaring away most of them, some of them just didn’t work like that.

He wanted to ask him to go on a walk instead, to get hot chocolate and muffins from the cafe Zak liked and he’d even let him have the umbrella all to himself so that his precious hair wouldn’t lose its volume. He wanted to go watch them practice, to cheer on his best friend and wave like an idiot when Zak so much as touched the ball (which, no offence to him, wasn’t actually that frequent if Darryl was being honest).

But he didn’t. He couldn’t. He’d done enough damage and he had to let it sync in.

“I’ll see you later?” He raised it as a question rather than an assumption, praying for something affirmative.

“Yeah.” Zak’s hand hesitated before grabbing his bag from the desk, closing his fist for just a second before picking it up and leaving the library, leaving Darryl for what felt like the longest time. 

Even during the summer holidays, they’d always found time to talk; a FaceTime between Darryl’s dog walk and Zak’s meetup with his home friends, a text every time one of them gained a new personal best on TypeRacer, a pizza delivered to Darryl’s door when he’d burnt the one he was making and even a phone call at five in the morning when Darryl had spent the hours beforehand feeling guilty about things other people wouldn’t have questioned and he needed his best friend to tell him that it didn’t matter to really hear it.

So when Zak wasn’t at the dining hall with the rest of the rugby boys that evening, it might just have been the longest they’d gone without coexisting.

It felt weird, walking over to sit with the team without Zak there. For a second Darryl thought he should go sit with the boys he knew from the physics club but decided against it when the new kid gave him a wave.

“How was practice?” He asked upon sitting down, trying his best to ignore the empty air next to him that would normally be bragging about how plain the food was before running to get an extra glass of milk the second the spice kicked in.

“I think we’ve got a new star player.” Karl motioned to Clay, the grins on everyone’s faces backing up his claim.

Except for George that was, who looked like he’d just drank a gallon of pure lemon juice. But that wasn’t anything new, especially during this first week back where he’d been on the verge of tears during Computer Science when the new boy was given praise (Darryl had made a joke about green not suiting him only to be shut down with the colour-blind card, a card that George somehow managed to use in every and any situation thrown at them despite its lack of any practical relevance).

“I wouldn’t go that far.” Clay brushed them off, podding the peas on his plate with his fork with the utmost precision as if they were tiny bombs about to explode.

Darryl was used to being naive, a trait he’d, unfortunately (and occasionally, when hanging around with this group of delinquents, fortunately) held for the majority of his lifetime. But even he could see there was something more behind the new boy, caverns in his mind that none of them dared to step foot in.

“Nah, he was good,” Dave added. “You’ll have to come and watch when you’ve not got homework.”

The taste in Darryl’s mouth turned salty, stinging his lips where he’d bitten away at the skin with stress. He wondered if they’d asked where he was or if Zak had come up with that line on his own accord. Either way, it made Darryl feel even sicker than he had in the library.

They bickered all the time, forever leaping between silly arguments and pranks to the point where it was strange if they weren’t yelling at each other. But this time was different, this time there wasn’t a quick wink or a private message to tell Darryl that it was all fun and games.

Because, of course, it wasn’t.

“It's not even the second week back and I’m already behind.”

It wasn’t a lie, the stupid question about photosynthesis still unanswered and laughing at him from the book in his bag. But it wasn’t the total truth either, not the reason why he’d spent the past few hours alone, wishing he had one of those remote controls from that bad Adam Sandler movie so he could fill out his roommate form all over again.

“I feel you dude, I never finished my summer work for maths and it’s due tomorrow.” Nick joined in from the end of the table.

Normally Darryl would have reminded him about the entire six weeks he’d had spare but couldn’t find the energy.

“Guess you’re pulling an all-nighter.” Karl grinned next to him, stretching his arms out and pretending to yawn.

“Can I do it in your room? I don’t wanna be on my laptop all night if Zak’s got a migraine. I’ll owe you?”

If Darryl did have one of those remotes then he’d have pressed pause right then, his mouth turning dry at the mention of his friend’s name. 

He guessed he’d turned Zak into a liar as well.

The others made jokes about Karl and Nick ‘doing it in his room’ but it all washed over Darryl, the conversation in the library on replay in his mind like a broken record, crackly and distorted more and more each time.

_ ‘I’ll see you later?’ _

_ ‘Yeah.’ _

He wished he’d asked more, wished he knew when later was. He thought it’d be in the dining hall but he was clearly wrong.

But Zak had agreed and Zak would never lie to him about anything serious.

_ ‘I’ll see you later?’ _

_ ‘Yeah.’ _

If he bundled the dessert from his tray into a napkin and ran as fast as he could to Zak’s room with it upon leaving the dining hall, would that be later?

_ ‘I’ll see you later?’ _

_ ‘Yeah.’ _

If he had one of those remotes, he’d have pressed fast forward until later.

He heard it in his head until they were all saying it out loud too, scraping their plates into the bins after eating and making plans for tomorrow. 

Darryl tapped Nick on the shoulder before he left and handed him the dessert, told him to give it to Zak when he went back to his room.

“No problem. I doubt he’d mind if you went up though?” Nick laughed to himself. “I wouldn't be surprised if that migraine was just a withdrawal symptom from spending an  _ entire _ rugby practice without you anyways.”

“Very funny.”

It wasn’t quite later yet and Darryl knew that, passing his friend the dessert before making his way to a room so empty that he could hear his own breath. Part of him wished that Alex would hurry up and come back from visiting his family so he wouldn’t be so alone but another part thought that it might have just made everything worse.

Coat on and umbrella in hand, he left the room before the walls moved any closer and suffocated him. 

He wondered if Nick had made the same joke to Zak, the one about the withdrawal symptoms. It was probably nothing to him, a passing quip about how much time they spent together. Just like all the jokes that everyone made about them, the ones about getting divorced every time they bickered or about Zak’s jealousy whenever Darryl hung out with his physics friends. Darryl knew they weren’t intended to harm and that was the worst part about it. Because then he only had himself to blame when he let them eat away at his insides until he started to believe that he spent too much time with his best friend, that he couldn’t function without him. Til he filled in that stupid form and made it all so much worse.

Someone nearly ran him over on a bike the second he left the grounds, swerving past him at the last second and spraying puddle gunk everywhere.

Okay, so maybe he couldn’t function without Zak.

His boots were thick with mud by the time he’d made it to the coffee shop, wiping them on the welcome mat for a good few minutes whilst the girl behind the counter smiled at him. Darryl had always liked her, she went to their neighbouring girls' school and he was pretty sure she hung out with Alastair and Wilbur sometimes at the weekend. He doubted she liked him back though, knowing fine well that he and Zak (well, mostly Zak) were probably the most annoying customers they had.

One time Zak had told him there was a secret menu and tricked him into saying stupid code words when he ordered. She had rolled her eyes, walked away and went to get her blonde friend from the back to serve them instead that time.

“The usual?” She asked once he made his way to the counter, the cup in her hand before Darryl had even said yes. 

“Just the hot chocolate, I’m not in a muffin mood today.”

He waited for her to ask where Zak was but she thankfully didn’t, making small talk instead about the summer and the weather and finally the liquid form of Nutella she placed on the counter. It was the most actual conversation Darryl had ever had with her and he figured it might have had something to do with the red marks around his eyes, the mud slashed up his trousers or the lack of a best friend by his side. 

Maybe all of them combined.

“Thanks.” He pulled a fiver from his wallet to pass to her but was shaken away, confirming his previous thought about her feeling sorry for him.

He wanted to tell her she didn’t need to, that he deserved it but that wasn’t what she was being paid for so he thanked her instead, picking up the drink to go sit down.

“I can get Niki to clean your booth?” She called out as he turned, Darryl only then realising that the table he normally sat at with Zak was littered with an empty cup and heaps upon heaps of sugar. If he didn’t know better he’d have thought the place was some sort of drug den, whole piles of the stuff on the table like it was going to be inhaled.

People were idiots but Darryl wasn’t in a frame of mind to judge them.

“It’s alright.” He popped his stuff down on a smaller table instead, the pages of his textbook spilling over the side when he tried to read it (tried being the keyword here, of course).

Things felt a little better by the time he left, the word photosynthesis had a bit more meaning than it had earlier and the hot chocolate had made Darryl ready for his bed. His chest still felt heavy and a lump formed in his throat when he thought about what had happened but at least he was ready to sleep, to skip some more time until it would be  _ later _ .

He even laughed for a minute when he passed that spot where the biker had nearly killed him on return to the Academy, grateful that no one was there to have witnessed it and even more grateful that Alex wasn’t back to ask why his trousers were so filthy upon his return. He didn’t think he could have handled having a song written about it, no matter how good his roommate was at coming up with fast rhymes and playing the guitar.

He’d missed a call from his Grandma earlier that day so figured he ought to type her an email before he fell asleep, getting sidetracked by YouTube and general internet browsing at least four times before a knock on the door had him shut his laptop altogether.

It was almost eleven and if his calculations were correct then he’d see Nick on the other side, complaining about how Karl distracted him too much and George wanted to sleep and the library was locked so he had nowhere else to finish the dumb project he could have done seven weeks ago.

At least if Alex had been here he’d have told him to do one without caring about being too rude.

Darryl was rolling his eyes before he even realised it wasn’t Nick in front of him.

“Hey.” Zak waved a hand as he spoke, the blue sleeves of his hoodie curled right around the ends of his fingertips. There was a carrier bag in the other, swinging past the bare calves of his legs. 

“Hi.” Darryl took a step back, fighting every urge he had to push past the heavy air between them and pull Zak into a hug.

Silence enveloped them for a moment. Zak’s eyes looked eager so Darryl moved aside, letting him know he was welcome without words. 

The door shut heavy and Darryl let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding in. He sat cross-legged on his bed, Zak taking paces above him. Darryl squeezed his duvet in his hand a little, wanting to burrow himself inside it completely and block out the rest of the world for a second. But he didn’t, he couldn’t. Not if Zak didn’t hide away from everyone else with him.

“I’m sor-” He went to break the silence but they must have had the same idea.

“There’s a spider on my bed.”

“Oh.” Darryl nodded his head, unsure of how to feel. “Do you need me to come get it for you?”

If he’d said yes then Darryl would have moved at his slowest. He’d have taken three times to tie up the laces on his trainers, walked as if his feet were aching and accidentally let the spider loose again once he caught it. 

Thankfully, he didn’t. 

“Nah. It was huge, I’m not going back there.”

Darryl knew the simple option would be for Zak to wait there while he went to deal with it, leaving him a spider-free home to return to. But Darryl also knew that sometimes his best friend was a little bit irrational. And that was something he’d stopped questioning years ago.

Darryl watched as Zak made his way to the bed, pulling himself up and letting his feet dangle over the edge.

Darryl wanted to hug him more than anything.

“You got a migraine?” 

“Nah, I made that up.”

If Darryl had one of those remotes he’d put this moment, the two of them side-by-side, in slow-motion, make it last as long as he could now that his brain had imagined what it would have been like if it had never happened again.

“I can’t exactly tell you off for lying.” Darryl gave a weak smile. “Seen as I’m now the king of it.”

“I wouldn’t call you the king. You have the worst lying face ever, you looked like someone had just shot up an orphanage every time I sat next to you.”

Darryl didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“I’m sorry.” He turned his head a little so he could really look at Zak, making sure to keep his eyes open for this one. He couldn’t pretend to be invisible all his life. “I really am, I just regretted it and I was scared you’d be mad at me when you found out. Which I guess you are, rightfully so.”

“I’m not mad at you.”

“You’re not?”

“I was for a bit. But apparently, I can’t go more than an afternoon being mad at you. And you left me your dessert, which Nick pretended was from him, but I knew it wasn’t.”

Darryl couldn’t help but smile at that one. What thoughtful friends he had.

“You can’t just forgive people right away, Zak. It’s supposed to take time and stuff until you know you’re really okay with everything. Not just because someone gave you dessert!” Darryl replied.

He wanted Zak to forgive him but he wanted it to be for the right reasons just as much.

“I know that. I do. But I also know that you wouldn’t be mean to me on purpose. And that you’ve probably already beaten yourself up enough about this for me to join in.”

“I wouldn’t,” Darryl echoed. “And I have.”

“Exactly. So we should just forget about it.” Zak opened up the carrier bag he’d been holding and pulled out its contents for Darryl. “I got you this from the caf when I skipped dinner. The girl behind the counter seemed very annoyed that I was there alone, I think she thought I was gonna pull off some sort of heist without you there to stop me.”

Darryl took the muffin in his hand and smiled, his mind flashing back to the barista's small talk and the piles of sugar strewn across their booth.

“Thank you.” He took a bite right away, not even caring if the crumbs went onto his sheets.

“It’s alright.” Zak yawned, resting his head on Darryl’s shoulder while he ate.

“You sure you don’t want me to go and kill that spider for you?”

Zak grunted when Darryl got up to put the wrapper in the bin, letting his body fall automatically on the bed where his friend’s shoulder was previously holding his weight.

“Nah, it creeped me the hell out. I’m not sleeping there.”

“So I guess I’m having Alex’s bed then?” Darryl rolled his eyes, looking across the room at the untouched bed, plain without sheets or even a blanket.

“You can come here.” Zak made a point of shifting himself closer to the wall, pulling up the cover’s to make room for Darryl. “Just turn the light off.”

So Darryl, like he was known for, did exactly what his best friend told him, turning the light off and crawling in next to Zak in the darkness.

“There you go.” He spoke as his head hit the pillow, the smell of Zak’s shampoo hitting him instantly; coconut and almond and some of the best nights of sleep he’d ever had.

“Will you tell me a story?” Zak whispered, just loud enough for Darryl to hear.

“Alright.” Darryl let his own body fall into comfort, his legs touching Zak’s under the cover making him feel like nothing could ever hurt him again.

“There was once a little boy who wanted to be able to fly. He tried to make a pair of wings out of cardboard to jump off his bed but they didn’t work. And his Grandad had bought him a Harry Potter book so he tried with a broom too, running around the street with it hoping it would take him to the sky. It didn’t work, so he begged his Grandad for the next book, hoping there would be a spell or something in that one. So his Grandad carried a list in his wallet with all the books on it, so that if he ever saw the right one in the charity shop he could buy it and cross it off.”

Darryl felt Zak’s hand grab his wrist, leading his arm forwards so his hand rested over his friend’s chest. 

He could hear Zak breathing next to him, his chest rising and falling under Darryl’s hand in its own special beat.

Darryl didn’t know if he’d fallen asleep yet or not but carried on anyway. Because it was finally  _ later _ and he wanted it to last as long as it could.

“He managed to buy the next four and the boy couldn’t believe how many different ways there were to fly…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading!! Make sure to leave a comment if you like! Sorry if you missed George's POV, he'll be back next chapter xo
> 
> [Here's a link to the playlist I made for the fic too if anyone wants to give that a listen!](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/07wzWftVG7qB3eJDpbuWyn?si=zWLJL_FbRAqqrSxyEC44Ig)


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